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Sumit SinghalSumit Singhal loves modern architecture. He comes from a family of builders who have built more than 20 projects in the last ten years near Delhi in India. He has recently started writing about the architectural projects that catch his imagination.

The Environmental Technology Centre (ETC) is situated in the former Valdedomingómez landfill site which has now been restored and transformed into a public forest park as part of the Southeast Madrid Regional Park Restoration Project. It is a visible restored access point and a meeting place in which environmentally relevant activities can be carried out. These range from courses, seminars and conferences to various types of exhibitions.

Its educational objective is to disseminate understanding and raising awareness among the youngest sectors of society. One of the most significant decisions taken upon embarking on this project was to locate the building on the exact site of the old waste reception warehouse and the furnace in order to recover the extraordinary unloading pits for use as exhibition and library areas as well as to help conserve the most significant elements of the facilities’ history.

Thus, the ETC has become a “recycled object” inserted into an environment which was historically intended for recycling and waste transformation, and therefore constitutes a bridge between the past and the future. The ETC, with a library, exhibition halls and a small auditorium, sits on a carpet of concrete and takes the form of three powerful volumes: two wooden boxes joined by a third glass one which is embedded into them, organising the connections between the different areas and linking the building to its immediate surroundings.